Want to Maximize Association Membership Value? Create Indispensable Engagement

Although “engaging people” might not seem like the most groundbreaking approach to organizational growth, it’s a simple idea that has wide-reaching effects.

What is engagement, at its core? The more connected we are to something, the more we love it. We develop memories surrounding the people, the experiences, and the things we learn. We’re most attached to the groups or organizations that we’re most involved in.

This engagement produces things like higher retention, increased member satisfaction, and a larger membership.

And the inverse is true. You might be experiencing the effects of a lack of engagement at your association now, without realizing the source of the problem. What are those effects? Maybe you’re struggling with:

• Retaining and recruiting more members
• Staying relevant in a digital world
• Communicating a compelling value proposition

All these challenges tie back to a lack of engagement – and can be solved by increasing engagement.

Reach Your Association Members with the Benefits They Need

Making connections is most likely one of your members’ top reasons for joining your association. You can maximize their membership value by providing members with the connections and resources they care about the most, year-round.

The best way to do this? Create a digital space for them to engage, and then use intentional, targeted communication to build a personalized experience for each one of them, reaching them with relevant content at the right time and place.

If this sounds impossible, it would be hard to achieve this level of personalization with individual outreach alone – that’s not scalable or cost effective.

An engagement platform helps you provide those valuable relationships 24/7, 365 days a year.

With tools like online community and marketing automation, you recreate the best parts of your association online. The great ideas and valuable connections members build with each other at your annual conference can happen all the time.

Then, with email marketing automation, gather the data you need to know about your members and create a personal experience for each member, providing unique value for each member.

This way, you can scale your engagement efforts for increased success.

These engagement tools not only benefit your members, but you will reap results across your organization – from member retention to events and staff efficiency.

Here’s just one example: Using community data to create relevant programming.

Community data points offer insights on how your organization can better help current members.

The American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) worked with Association Analytics to analyze their community data, which helped them identify overarching membership trends and popular topics, like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), enabling them to tailor programming:

“When we started aggregating data, GDPR was strongly searched and frequently discussed in the community. So, we created a group and started pushing more GDPR content and resources based on the data we had collected. This was well before the regulation went into effect – we knew we had to be proactive. We put together a GDPR program much faster because we saw it growing early.”

– Reggie Henry, Chief Information and Engagement Officer, ASAE

Strengthen Your Association’s Value Proposition with Engagement

Personalized, relevant, and timely communication is the name of the game if you want to build the connections that keep people coming back. Engagement tools can help you show how valuable your association membership truly is.

If you have any of these organizational problems, get started by planning your engagement strategy around engagement tools. These tools not only benefit your members, but you will reap results across your organization – from member retention to events and staff efficiency.

Learn about how your association can use engagement tools to solve four of the biggest organizational challenges facing associations today:

• Member Acquisition
• Member Retention
• Member Win-Back
• Non-Dues Revenue

Elizabeth Bell

Content Marketing Manager

Elizabeth Bell is the Content Marketing Manager at Higher Logic. She’s passionate about communities, tech, and communicating about both effectively. When she’s not writing, you’ll probably find her cooking, reading, gardening, or playing volleyball.